VR (virtual reality), which redefines the perception of reality with its technology, is used in many areas from entertainment to education and production, is a candidate to transform different areas of our lives. So, with the arrival of 5G,
1- ACCORDING TO IDC’S PROJECTIONS, AR / VR MARKET WILL REACH A TOTAL OF 52.2 MILLIONS BY 2022.
It is difficult to say anything clear. Other companies have different predictions. Two years ago there were many other predictions, today those predictions are undergoing transformation. For example, expectations in 2016 were much higher than today. Now a little more down-to-earth numbers are being spoken.
As far as we can see, the pace of technology progress and the adaptation speed of this business has gained significant speed in the 2018-2019 period. Consequently, that number can go to different places. As HTC, we launched about 2 months ago . There was an ecosystem that we were familiar with before, but we saw that many more companies were working to develop VR-related applications, and corporate companies to adapt VR to their own business.
Therefore, I think you will not have a bad share, as we see that our population, which is young and has a high interest in technology, and that the adaptation of this work will be fast in corporate work. If we give an example from mobile; It is an annual market of 10 million in this is one of the biggest markets in Europe. We think there will be a similar picture in VR.
2- WILL WE HAVE A REMEMBERLY DECREASE IN CORRECT PROPORTIONAL PRICES WITH THE INCREASE OF VR USAGE?
For example, if we said that 10 years ago, such an experience would be realized with today’s costs, people would laugh. VR is actually not a new technology, we are talking about a 60-year-old technology, and when it first came out, it was applied with a different method with very different hardware, but for the last 20 years, VR has already been used in the field of design and new product development.
While using this, companies make installations known as “wall” and “cave”, which cost more than 100 thousand euros. Now the point at which such costly hardware has come today is truly surprisingly affordable. Although it is still considered to be somewhat priced for the individual user, you can actually have this experience for the price of a mobile phone.
VR hardware is not a stand-alone source of income for manufacturers. HTC doesn’t specifically look at it that way. Rather than doing business with very high margins here, the important part of the job is to see this business as an infrastructure provider to build a service on. Because the eco system it will create around it and the platform and services you will put on it are much more important in the long run.
Of course, the economy of scale cannot be denied. In other words, the more a product is produced, the lower its costs per unit. Therefore, it is normal that even this current product decreases as the number increases.
3- HOW WILL THE ADVANCE OF 5G AFFECT THE VR SECTOR?
We will see different combinations with new technologies. We currently have VR headsets that can be used alone or work with a computer.
With 5G, a different service called “Cloud VR” will start to be received and we expect individual users to be included in much more VR areas after this step.
4- WHEN VR IS CALLED, IT IS OVERALLY THINK OF GAME BASED. WHICH AREAS OF OUR LIVES IS VR CANDIDATE FOR TRANSFORMING IN THE DAYS TOGETHER?
It is necessary to look at this by dividing it into two as individual and institutional. The game still occupies a very important place in individual use. Currently, we have around 3,500 content specially produced for VR.
More than 80 percent of them are games. But 20 percent is a considerable amount, and this 20 percent includes very different ingredients. For example, a developer designed Apollo 11’s travel to the Moon via VR.
As soon as JFK announces the trip to the Moon, you watch this public address on a television at home, and then Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and you go to Apollo 11 with the elevator. You can sit in that cabin and experience what happened during the journey from launch until reaching the Moon, in the most realistic way.
Apart from that, for example, today there is a VR gallery in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum. There, the environment in which Da Vinci lives is brought together with the user.
A famous VR developer company named ‘Muse VR’ made a very similar application. There is a VR gallery right opposite Osman Hamdi Bey’s The Tortoise Trainer and we have been informed that he will stay there for a long time.
Apart from the game, many different experiences will continue to increase for VR today. For example, the VR category was created in film festivals such as Sundae and Tribeca, and we have an initiative called Vive Studios, they invest in this area with them and other developers.
Many valuable film production companies are working to develop films for VR. For VR, there will be movies with both animation and real actors. Therefore, although we are in a very early steps, VR allows the human imagination to spoil everything.
Also, it is necessary to talk about the applications on the corporate side. On the corporate side, education, health, design, tourism, real estate, construction, etc. fields have the opportunity to transform their own business with virtual reality. There are many institutions in the world that do this as a pioneer. VR is something that offers us everything we can imagine, eliminating the need to physically be in one place.
For example, there is a VR application developed by Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine, which will be available in September or October and they will offer the training of open heart surgery to students with VR. VR is very valuable to ensure equal opportunities in education. You can enter hard-to-reach places in the world with VR. With an internet connection and VR connection, a kid in Mozambique can listen to a lecture at Harvard University as if they were in that classroom.
5- WHAT IS THE MARKET SIZE IF WE WILL TALK TODAY? DO YOU HAVE ANY DATA ABOUT VR USAGE ?
Unfortunately, we do not have such data yet. As I said, we have just entered the market and we are the only company in worlds that delivers high-end VR applications to the user. We have a few competitors around the world, but none of them make official sales in the Pakistani market. In short, we will watch the formation of the markets